Georgetown comes up a point short against Lake City

Playing just three days after an impressive victory over North Myrtle Beach thanks to flood-related rescheduling issues, the Georgetown Bulldogs dropped a tough 34-33 thriller to Region VII-AAA foe Lake City on Friday night.

In a game dominated by the offenses, including four touchdown plays of 45 yards or more, a defensive stand by the upstart Panthers proved decisive.

Lake City, which entered the game 0-2 in region play after a double-overtime 38-32 loss to Myrtle Beach a week ago, had taken a 34-33 lead with 7:41 left in the game on TyShawn Baines’ 1-yard touchdown run and Keenan Graham’s extra-point kick.

Georgetown responded by marching to a first down inside the Lake City 10-yard-line with just over three minutes to play. From there, the Panther defensive line, led by Jawaun McDowell, took over by sacking Georgetown quarterback Jarvis Brown on three straight plays.

The third sack came on fourth-and-23 from the 28-yard-line as Bulldogs coach Bradley Adams elected to go for the first down.

The Panthers took over on downs at the 30 with 2:53 to play, earned a first down on a 32-yard halfback pass from Baines to Molik Brown and ran the clock down to :09 left before the Bulldogs took over on their own 31-yard-line.

Two Georgetown passes fell incomplete, and the Bulldogs fell to 2-1 in the region and 6-2 overall.

“We’re finally figuring out how to score,” Lake City coach Terrell Fleming said. “We didn’t finish against Myrtle Beach and we did tonight. We’re a pretty good ball team when we do the little things. I couldn’t be prouder of these guys.”

Adams was left concerned about the play of his special teams, which allowed Lake City to cover an onside kick in the first quarter. Place-kicker Lorenzo Drayton also missed two extra-point kicks in the second half.

“We left points on the field with special teams,” Adams said. “We’ve got some things we’ve got to get better at just all the way around. Lake City’s got a very good football team. Losing by one point, we’ve got to make the extra points and we’ve got to recover the onside kick on kickoff return. It was the special teams things that came and got us tonight.”

The Panthers (1-2, 5-3) started fast, marching 68 yards in eight plays on their first possession to take a 6-0 lead on Baines’ 1-yard run. Graham surprised the Bulldogs on the ensuing kickoff by rolling the onside kick the required 10 yards and recovering it himself.

Two plays later, Lake City led 12-0 with 7:37 left in the first quarter on a 45-yard touchdown strike from Chris Burnett to Molik Brown.

But Brown and the Bulldogs got their quick-strike offense going, scoring touchdowns on their next three possessions to take a 21-12 lead with 9:07 left in the first half.

After Brown scampered in on a 4-yard run, he found Darrion Graham on a 72-yard touchdown pass and then Deakidd Anderson on an 87-yard strike.

But the Panthers bounced back with a pair of second-quarter scores for a 27-21 halftime lead. Halfback Baines passed two yards to Juwaun McDowell for a touchdown and then caught a pass on the two-point conversion with 1:38 left to close the first-half scoring.

The Bulldogs dominated the third quarter with a pair of touchdowns to take a 33-27 lead with :45 left in the quarter, but were haunted by the two extra point misses.

Brown, a 5-foot-10, 155-pound senior, completed 17 of 22 passes for a whopping 338 yards to lead the Georgetown offense. Baines, a 5-foot-10, 200-pound junior, was the Lake City workhorse, carrying 37 times for 129 yards.

This story was originally published October 17, 2015 at 1:27 AM with the headline "Georgetown comes up a point short against Lake City."